Sarries Pip The Cherry-And-Whites

By all accounts, Sunday's game between Saracens and Gloucester was a cracking match. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend, so I'm only going by what the reports have been saying.

Sounds like it was a hard fought and close game right up until the last whistle. Gloucester were leading by only a couple of points at half time, and Saracens just managed to hang on at the end for Kris Chesney to score a try, which Glen Jackson subsequently converted, to give them a 24-22 victory.

It's good to see Saracens finally winning close games like that, when in past seasons, they would have not been able to come back and make a break for the win. It's also fantastic to see Chesney's signed another 2-year contract, and with match-winning scores like that under his belt, it can only be good for the team.

The photo above is from when Saracens played Gloucester in the Zurich Wildcard Final at Twickenham on 14th May 2005. Sarries won that too (24-16), to go through to the Heineken cup in the 2005/2006 season.

The weekend's win puts Saracens at 5th in the table, just two points behind Gloucester, and with one match in hand (against London Irish, who are currently at 8th). Let's hope they can keep up the momentum going into the last part of the season.

It seems that England's players for the Ireland game all came through their weekend club matches without incident, so hopefully they will be raring to go come Saturday at Croke Park. I think it will be time to replenish the beer stock in the fridge, and sit down for three captivating games.

Double The Fun

The season kicked off in style on Saturday at Twickenham, with the London Double Header and 51,000+ fans shouting for their team. That's one thing I love about Rugby - get the fans of say, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham packed together all over a stadium, and there would be chaos. But the four Premiership London rugby clubs can enjoy a day out at HQ with friendly rivalry, banter, singing and some silly mascot challenges on the pitch, without a hint of aggro.

Anyway, on to the games. They were both close. Quins were unlucky to go down by one point to London Irish, 20-19. There seemed to be a lot of kicking going on in that game. The weather had threatened a downpour, but it didn't actually rain much at all. Just very windy - maybe their game plan had been biased for the wet and they were surprised when it stayed dry!

That's a taster for the game, you can see more from the Irish v Quins match on my dedicated rugby photography site.

As for Saracens vs Wasps, Sarries went down by 2 points in the end, after having lead by a point at the break. Another kicking-heavy game, but there were a few tries scored - sadly for me, too many by Wasps!

Saracens played some of our new boys, notably Argentinian Winger Tomas de Vedia and Italian Hooker Fabio Ongaro. Here's a photo of our new-look Fabio Front Row:

There's more from the Sarries vs Wasps match, plus loads of others, at rugbypix.com.

As for the other matches over the weekend, Bristol gave Worcester a walloping. Sarries are away at Bristol next weekend - eek! Newcastle went down to Northampton, and Bath lost to Gloucester. The positive out of that match was Danny Grewcock scoring two tries! He's obviously raring to go this season, which is great news for Bath and England.